


the raven in the lion's den

by HexJellyfish



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cat Burglar, F/F, Flirting, Hiding in Plain Sight, before Sloane finds the relic, girls kissing girls (hell yeah x2), that thing where a couple is together and also their alter-egos are together, you know what i mean?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 08:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15191288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HexJellyfish/pseuds/HexJellyfish
Summary: alt title: stop joking to the police about being a criminal, you're going to get caughtTo the Goldcliff Militia, Sloane is just the nice girl who comes into the office to visit her girlfriend Hurley on her lunch breaks. She intends to keep it that way, too––but sometimes she can't stop herself from getting a little playful.





	the raven in the lion's den

Sloane slipped into the room quietly, keeping careful tabs on each of the militia officers on duty; when she was sure none of them were paying attention to her, she crossed the room in a handful of long strides, keeping to the dark spots away from the windows. She couldn’t be detected––not until she had what she came for.

Another officer entered the room, and men started to aggregate around him, relieved to have a break from the monotony of paperwork. Sloane took the opportunity to leave the dark, making a beeline towards one desk in particular. The officer at that desk, short and sweet but clearly tough as nails, was ignoring the commotion and focusing on her paperwork––all the better for Sloane to strike.

_Carefully… carefully…_

She closed the distance confidently, placing one hand over the officer’s eyes and the other on the cup of coffee on her desk.

“Guess who?”

The officer sighed, but Sloane could feel her smiling cheeks against her hand. “I guess Sloane?”

“You guess right!” Sloane shoved her paperwork to the side to sit on the desk, removing her hand from the officer’s face and sipping greedily from her cup. The view was much better from this angle, she decided––from here she could make out all the freckles on the officer’s rosy cheeks, and her cute little ears, and the aggressive swoop of her red hair. “I hope I’m not interrupting, _Lieutenant_ Hurley?”

“Nothing… too important, no,” She admitted. Sloane loved this side of Hurley––the daytime Hurley, who worked hard, and dreamed about a better future, and had trouble meeting her eyes when she talked because it would trip up her tongue. She was so _cute!_ Which wasn’t to say that nighttime Hurley wasn’t also cute––but she was cute in a more daring, adrenaline addict, first-time-breaking-the-rules-and-loving-it kind of way. If Sloane didn’t know better, she’d think they were two different people––but she did know better, and she loved them both anyway.

Hurley smacked her leg with her pen, shaking Sloane out of her love-bubble. “Aren’t you supposed to be laying low right now?” She cast a secretive glance over to her coworkers, who were starting to disperse from the doorway. “It’s a little soon after the last––well, you know, the––“

“The thing, I know,” Sloane said, “but it’s fine, babe, relax. They’re so clueless down here––you’re the only one who knows a thing about anything, and you’re not going to tell on me.”

“Oh yeah?” Hurley said, turning back to her paperwork. Nighttime Hurley was sneaking out in the teasing curl of her smile. “Maybe I will report you this time.”

“Oh, _will_ you, now?”

“Yeah, maybe I will. Maybe I’ll go call Captain Bane down here and tell him I’ve got the catch of the decade––a months-long sting operation where I convinced the Raven, the Scourge of Goldcliff, that I’m in love with her, infiltrated her crime network, and exposed the entire illegal racing operation to the light of justice.” Hurley was daring her to fight back, but her hushed tone betrayed her playful intentions. Sloane was glad––it would be _super_ embarrassing if she got caught because her girlfriend didn’t know how to whisper.

“I didn’t realize you were so daring, Lieutenant.” Sloane picked herself up off the desk, then kneeled next to Hurley in a mock gesture of surrender. Even so, she was still almost eye-to-eye with Hurley––the troubles of mixed-height dating. “You’re right––I should surrender myself to the law.” She offered her wrists together, beckoning to be cuffed.

This time Hurley smacked her on the head with her pen. “Oh, hush up, you––Bane is coming.”

Hurley snatched one of the pens from the drawer of Hurley’s desk, then casually stood to her full height, sweeping her dark hair over her shoulder innocently. “You dropped this, darling. Oh, Captain Bane! I didn’t see you come in!”

The Captain, a veritable cloud of muscles with a mustache, looked decidedly grumpy until he recognized Sloane––then he visibly relaxed. “Sloane! It’s been so long, dear, I was worried Hurley had scared you off.”

“No, sir! I think you’ll find I’m tough to get rid of––like a crow you weren’t supposed to feed.” She gave a mock salute, and the Captain laughed heartily, which, in his off-puttingly gruff voice, sounds a little like a Doberman barking.

“Well, persistence is a virtue, certainly,” He chuckled. “And listen––I’m sorry I looked so scary comin’ over here. I thought Hurley was processing a criminal, so I had my Scary Face on.”

Hurley laughed, a little nervously. “Nope––no criminals here, not today.”

Bane nodded knowingly. “You’re such a nice gal, Sloane––promise me you aren’t jaywalking or stealing library books and we’ll call it a day.”

Sloane saluted again. “No, sir––I would never stoop to stealing library books.”

Bane gave another approving nod, then stalked off to his office. Hurley let out a pent-up breath. “You need to be more careful, missy.”

Sloane smirked. “No offense, Hurl, but your boss wouldn’t know a crime if it stole his wallet––not that fashion disaster. One silver bracer, Bane? Really? Are you Fantasy Michael Jackson?”

Hurley brandished the pen a third time, and Sloane dodged away. “Why are you even here? I’m not complaining, but––do you need something, or? I’m not letting you look at the city floor plans, I’ve already told you that it’s above my clearance, and––“

“No, no, nothing like that.” She let her arms slide comfortably around Hurley’s neck, her hands coupling under the halfling’s chin. “I just missed you, that’s all. Aren’t I allowed to visit my girlfriend on her lunch break?”

“This isn’t––I’m not on my lunch break?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you? You’re on your lunch break now. You’re going to get lunch with me, actually––I thought you knew that. In fact, you were the one who asked me, and you insisted on paying, because that would be the lawful thing to do.”

Hurley snorted laughter. “Yeah? I said all of those things?”

“Oh good, you _do_ remember! Let’s go.” Sloane dragged Hurley out of her chair, kicking it home in the desk and leading her by the hand through the office front door.

#

Sloane led Hurley to a small restaurant in the lower district of Goldcliff, where they could eat in relative privacy. Sloane was always trying to find excuses to get Hurley alone––not out of any personal need to be out of the public eye, but because she knows Hurley won’t take time for herself unless Sloane makes her. She’ll just work and work until she’s sleeping under her desk to get more work done. It was one of the many ways they complemented each other. Hurley was the order to Sloane’s chaos––the peace to her violence, the brakes to her accelerator. She owed Hurley so much––as a result, she had a civic duty to help Hurley relax however she could.

“You know, I’ve always loved seafood, but it’s so hard to find in Goldcliff,” Hurley said, taking a bite from her plank salmon.

“Have you ever been fishing?” Sloane asked.

“Hm… no, I don’t think so.”

“Neither have I. I’ve heard boats are fun, though––oh my god, Hurl, boats.”

“Hm?”

“You could totally hook up a battlewagon engine to a boat! You’d have to leave the arcane converter intact, but instead of pistons you pipe the pressure into a rotor and stick it right in the water!”

Hurley chewed on her salmon thoughtfully. “Mm. Well, maybe––I can’t imagine it’d handle well without, y’know, _wheels_. Water isn’t exactly known for its traction.”

“What about a rudder?” Sloane offered.

“I mean, it’d be hard to manipulate with the amount of water pressure you’d generate, but––oh! You could just take the whole steering column and run a line from the wheel to the rudder. That way you could feed some of the arcane converter power into a servo for power-steering––and I could keep using my nice leather steering wheel cover.” She downed her glass of water and shoved her plate aside, settling her elbows on the table. Not for the first time, Sloane was struck by how well each of Hurley’s features came together to form a dashing whole. Her mint-green eyes, her boyish haircut, her chewed-up lips–– _gods,_ how hot Hurley could be if only she’d muster a little attitude (that said, Sloane had a weakness for women with bad attitudes––maybe she wanted to be caught after all).

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Hurley asked.

“You,” Sloane said. “How could I not?”

Hurley opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by her Stone of Farspeech vibrating in her pocket. She fumbled it out of her pocket, then held it up to her ear; even from across the table, Sloane could hear the gruffness of Captain Bane’s voice. That man needed a lozenge, or something. Hurley nodded to herself a few times, scribbled something down on her hand in pen, then hung up the Stone.

“Work calls,” Hurley sighed, placing a handful of coins on the table and gathering her things. “I’m on patrol tonight, down by Poppy Heights. I hate patrolling there––nothing ever happens. I’ll meet up with you sometime tomorrow?”

Sloane thought for a moment, then nodded. “Sometime.” Hurley gave her a suspicious look, but said nothing, waving to the owner of the shop and jogging down the street, towards the office. If she suspected what Sloane had in mind, she didn’t take the time to shut her down––and that was all the permission Sloane needed.

#

About an hour into her patrol on Poppy Heights, Hurley got an emergency call from HQ asking all available officers on the west side of town to converge on the Goldcliff Historical Museum––there was a robbery in progress. Sloane knew this for three reasons: firstly, she installed a black-market Farspeech scanner in her battlewagon; secondly, she was the one who left an anonymous tip at HQ; and thirdly, she was also the one who robbed the Museum. After all, you could never be too careful.

Sloane hovered in the rafters until she saw a police wagon pull up to the Museum, and a single halfling-sized officer jump out, approaching the front doors cautiously. It was play-time. She silently slid down the support beams and draped herself across the receptionist desk.

Hurley kicked the doors in, hands drawn in proper Monk fashion. “Don’t move!”

“I won’t,” Sloane promised.

Hurley froze in the doorway. “Sloane?”

“Hey babe.”

“Sloane, I––did you rob the Museum?” She approached the desk, hands still drawn, her expression both relieved and annoyed. “I thought we talked about this.”

Sloane threw her legs over the desk and slid to the floor, approaching Hurley with fluid grace. She was wearing her black jumpsuit, and it was hard not to play the role of the cat burglar, even with Hurley. “We did. I didn’t rob the Museum this time––well, I _did_ , technically, but I put the painting behind the receptionist’s desk. It was just for fun.”

With that, relief started to outstrip annoyance in Hurley’s expression, and she risked a smile. “You promise you didn’t keep anything?”

Sloane waved her hand passively. “I put the painting back, even though I really, _really_ wanted to keep it. Didn’t I do good?” She closed the distance between them until her arms could wrap easily around Hurley’s neck. She let her fingers run through the short hairs on the back of her head. “You don’t even have to take the credit if you don’t want to, cause I know you don’t want me boosting your numbers, even though you deserve that pay raise more than Lieutenant Dove does and he’s only getting picked because he’s a man and you’re a woman, and if you ask me, _that’s_ the true crime, sexism, I mean––“ Hurley placed a finger over Sloane’s lips, then pulled her in by her collar for a kiss. They lingered there for a moment, utterly content; then Hurley seemed to remember where they were, and pulled away.

“You’re rambling, darling,” Hurley whispered, “and you should leave before more officers arrive.”

Sloane sighed and nodded, backing slowly towards the door; then she fished her battlewagon key from her pocket and clicked the remote fob. Outside the building, a melodic horn blared. “Hey, Lieutenant?”

Hurley placed her hands on her waist. “Yes?”

Sloane couldn’t stop herself from grinning. “There’s another painting in the trunk of the battle wagon.” Then she turned and sprinted out the door towards her feathered wagon, starting the engine remotely. Hurley called after her, alarmed, and sprinted towards her own militia wagon. Sloane could hear Hurley shouting into her Stone of Farspeech, even over the purr of the wagon, informing Bane that she was in pursuit of the burglar, and to clear the streets downtown.

Sloane laughed and slid into the leather seat, relishing the thrum of the wagon underneath her; she hoped this game never had to end.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @ arcane-arbys. <3


End file.
